April 25, 2007

The Other 13

by emptywheel

Thinkprogress has a list of 37 White House staffers who had or have RNC email addresses (though the RNC sent these a bit too late, I see, to avoid a big old subpoena).

Dan Bartlett, counselor to President BushTrey Best, associate director Office of Political AffairsMike Britt, associate director Office of Political AffairsJane Cherry, associate director Office of Political AffairsRaul Damas, former associate director Office of Political AffairsMelissa Danforth, former associate director Office of Strategic
InitiativesParis Dennard, executive assistant Office of Political AffairsMichael Ellis, former associate director Office of Strategic
InitiativesJonathan Felts, former associate director Office of Political Affairs who
became assistant to Vice President Dick Cheney for political affairsB.J. Goergen, former executive assistant to Karl Rove who later joined the
State Department’s office of public diplomacyIsrael Hernandez, former assistant to Rove who later became assistant
secretary of commerceTaylor Hughes, executive assistant and special projects coordinator to
RoveJason Huntsberry, former associate director Office of Political AffairsBarry Jackson, deputy to RoveScott Jennings, deputy director of political affairsKorinne Kubena, associate director Office of Political AffairsCathie Martin, deputy director of communications for policy and
planningAnita McBride, chief of staff for the first ladyLauren McBrien, former special assistant to the director of political
affairs for CheneyMindy McLaughlin, associate director of schedulingMel Raines, former assistant to Cheney for political affairsSusan Ralston, former assistant to RoveCliff Rosenberger, staff assistant Office of Political AffairsKarl Rove, deputy chief of staff and senior adviser to the presidentMatt Schlapp, former director of political affairsJon Seaton, former associate director Office of Political AffairsScott Sforza, deputy director of communications for productionNick Sinatra, associate director Office of Political AffairsBrad Smith, executive assistant Office of Political AffairsSteven Soper, former associate director Office of Political AffairsJessica Swineheart, former executive assistant Office of Political
AffairsSara Taylor, director of political affairsNicholas Thompson, associate director Office of Strategic InitiativesJocelyn Webster, former staff assistant Office of Political AffairsPete Wehner, director of Office of Strategic InitiativesEmily Willeford, director of Rove’s officeOPA intern (used by various interns)

I'll come back to the actual contents of the list later. But for now I'd like to speculate wildly about the remaining 13 people--the people who'd bring us up to 50 the RNC has assured us have off-the-books accounts..

I've helpfully bolded the names of the people who aren't explicitly related to Rove (the Office of Strategic Initiatives reports to Rove, so I've left them off).

Two things stick out. First, Laura's minder (and the scheduler) has an RNC email account. Given the amount of barnstorming she does, that may be easily explained. But it is notable that Laura's got her own off-site email access.

Then there's the other interesting category. We've got Mel Raines, who used to work for Cheney but is gone. Lauren McBrien, who also used to work for Cheney. And finally, Cathie Martin, who is listed under her current curious title (given her appearance in the USA purge emails, she's definitely com. But we also know she was using her WH email to talk about firing USAs), but who also, surprise, used to work for Cheney. How remarkable, that such a significant chunk of the non-Rove RNC emailers used to work for Cheney--but no one who currently works for Cheney appears on the list.

I'm going to make one of my patented outtamyarse guesses and say most of the remaining lucky 13 still work for Cheney.

It would make sense. It would be just like Mr. Fourth Co-Equal branch to refuse to turn over the names of his associates with the off-site accounts--after all, he won't even let his staffers' names be published, and to list them here would require actually ... naming them. Then there's the matter of the 250 pages of emails "not archived in the normal fashion." And there's Jenny Mayfield's remarkable prescience in leaving any email searches to David Addington, rather than searching herself. Besides, I just think if one of Bush's puppet-masters had off-site email, the second would insist on the same privilege.

Comments

Hmm...sure does make sense. Especially the privacy thinging around Darth.

How to shake those 13 lose? Seems to me your argument gives congressional investigators more ammo to demand the complete list, and the reasons why those thirteen weren't included, perhaps directing rather pointed questions to the OVP.

(Drip...drip...drip...I can't figure out if this is maddening or entertaining. Maddenly entertaining?)

So what about the 25 megs of data? The RNC somehow believes that this is a massive quantity. It could be if it is pure email and not attachments. They should state the number of emails, not the total size.

In LaFamilia, once you are Cheney's you still work for Cheney when you go work for another cousin. He clearly peppered all the departments with his operatives and spies. So I won't doubt that any of these aren't at least still sleepers for Cheney.

Is that David Dreier's Brad Smith, the Republican's (former) partner and chief-of-staff? The same Brad (W.) Smith who was outed by the LA Weekly, along with the closeted Congressman, during the 2004 election cycle? The same Brad Smith who earns that handsome $156,600 salary? So his boyfriend was chairman of the House Rules Committee from 1999-2007... Why would Smith need secret RNC e-mail access?

Just checking back in, but 25M is not a "massive" amount of data for a key mail server, though it's been over a decade since I had anything to do with one. Hell, Yahoo had to extend the amount of storage for individuals beyond 100 Megs because people were maxing their accounts, with just one email addr.

I just took discovery on e-mails and related Microsoft Office data from a company with about 70 employees. We got 5.7 gigabytes of data zipped, which probably is about 4.5 gigs once we remove the duplicates. The time frame is about 4 1/2 years. This seems about comparable to me.